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Even though they might not get you any closer to a relationship. After the first truly bad date? After the 70th? A generation ago, things were simpler. You essentially had two options: Meet a fellow human being in your respective flesh sacks, or pay somebody or a newspaper to set you up with one. The internet wrought popular paid services like Match. The practice has a long history: OkCupid rolled out its A-List feature as early as , before Tinder and Bumble even existed.
And what the freemium pricing model did for online games is becoming the strategy used by dating apps today. When it comes to online dating, however, the reasons people choose to upgrade to the payment models are far more varied than with a typical gaming app.
But people are still paying for premium — lots of them. Hannah, a year-old teacher in Chicago, bought Bumble Boost after four years of being single and realizing she wanted to get serious about marriage and family.
For Hannah, the biggest benefit was seeing who liked her before making the commitment to like them back. It also helped her get out of her comfort zone. That curiosity is the same reason Wynter, a year-old engineer in Brooklyn, made the leap to Boost. I had friends reviewing my photos and got the thumbs-up on quality. I figured if I could see the matches, I could at least see who was swiping on me.
